Educator Guilty of Secretly Taping Calls Is Spared Jail Time

Oxnard school district administrator Pedro R. Placencia, convicted last month of secretly tape-recording a trustee’s telephone calls, was spared jail time Wednesday when a judge reduced the charges against him and gave him three years probation.

Placencia, 56, faced more than three years in prison after a jury found him guilty of six felony counts of illegally intercepting and recording 18 telephone calls made by trustee James Suter.

But following pleas for leniency by friends and co-workers on hand to testify about Placencia’s years of community service, Municipal Judge Roland N. Purnell reduced the charges to misdemeanors and ordered the longtime educator to provide free tutoring to Oxnard youngsters as part of his probation.

“This is not felony conduct,” Purnell told a courtroom packed with Placencia supporters, who burst into applause after the sentence was handed down. “He has really hurt himself more than anyone else.”

Before sentencing, Placencia delivered a tearful apology to the Suter family.

While admitting that he tape-recorded the phone calls, Placencia said he never meant to hurt anyone. In fact, he said he only meant to inform longtime friend and school board member Mary Barreto that Suter had been saying unflattering things about her.

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The tape-recorded conversations came to light last year after they were anonymously left on Barreto’s doorstep. She reportedly played one for fellow trustee Arthur Joe Lopez, who alerted authorities.

Placencia, a 25-year district employee, said afterward that he was relieved to put the criminal matter behind him.

“I don’t deserve to go to jail, and the felonies they were trying to give me, I don’t deserve those either,” said Placencia, his wife Josephine at his side.

Placencia, former head of the district’s migrant education program, was indicted by the grand jury in September on six felony counts and later arrested at his school district office.

A search warrant served on Placencia’s home turned up a tape recorder and radio scanner like the one used to record Suter’s conversations. A second search warrant served at Barreto’s home turned up two 90-minute cassette tapes with the recorded conversations.

Barreto initially was a target of the investigation, but the Ventura County Grand Jury found insufficient evidence to support an indictment.

Suter was not on hand Wednesday for the sentencing, having suffered a stroke after being hospitalized more than a month ago because of heart problems.

However, his wife, Helen, was there to speak on his behalf. Choking back sobs, she said she believes that the stress associated with the incident contributed to her husband’s health problems.

And she said their lives had been turned upside down by the political corruption case, which has rocked the elementary school district.

“This has been totally devastating to my family,” she said. “We feel so violated.”

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On the other side, 13 of Placencia’s friends and co-workers paraded into court to urge Purnell to show mercy. They offered impassioned testimonials about the good works performed by Placencia over the years and said a single mistake should not overshadow decades of community service.

“He has always, absolutely always, been a man of integrity,” said Joe Mendoza, director of the migrant education program for the Ventura County superintendent of schools. “I’ve always counted on him and he has always come through. I can say without any reservation that Pete does good work.”

Added retired Oxnard school district administrator Juanita Sanchez Valdez: “You don’t have a hardened criminal, just an ordinary citizen who made a mistake.”

In pushing to maintain the felony convictions and impose a 30-day jail sentence, Deputy Dist. Atty. Mark Aveis argued that Placencia recorded Suter’s phone calls in an effort to gather intelligence for political gain.

The bulk of those conversations centered around two controversial district issues: the job performance of Supt. Bernard Korenstein and a push to reverse a decision to name the district’s newest campus after a former superintendent.

Aveis said that Placencia has not shown true remorse and that he continues to cover up for others suspected of being involved in the recording scheme.

“His conduct clearly jeopardized the political process,” Aveis told the court. “Mr. Suter was a trustee. Many of the conversations dealt with strategies for dealing with sensitive board issues. It undermined the integrity of the process.”

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However, Placencia’s attorney, Victor Salas, argued that his client had no political motivation and that despite what prosecutors may suspect, he acted alone.

“What he has done is wrong, what he has done is against the law and he’s taking responsibility for that,” Salas said. But “this was Mr. Placencia’s doing; no one else did it.”

With the criminal case behind him, Placencia now turns his attention to saving his job and teaching credential.

He has been on leave without pay or benefits since Nov. 1. Shortly after Placencia was convicted, the Oxnard school district sent him a letter asking whether he would consider resigning to save the expense of an administrative hearing.

However, Salas said Wednesday that his client holds onto some hope of regaining his job, especially now that the charges have been reduced. School board members are expected to hold a hearing on the matter within 60 days.

“Now we have a fighting chance,” Salas said. “That’s all we could ask for.”